In order to effect filling of containers with food products, such as margarine, ice cream, and the like, specialized equipment has been developed which operates to successively move containers through various stages of a filling and sealing operation. This equipment typically includes an intermittently driven, indexed container conveyor, which operates to convey containers in relation to various filling and sealing stations. In a typical arrangement, containers are dispensed onto individual flights of the conveyor, with the containers thereafter successively presented to a filling station (for filling with product), and subsequent sealing and/or lid-applying stations. Suitable mechanisms eject the filled containers from the conveyor for subsequent packaging, storage, and shipment.
As will be appreciated, operation of this type of container filling equipment requires synchronization and coordination of the various filling and sealing operations with the indexed, intermittent advancement of the containers. Heretofore, conveyors used for container filling have typically included mechanical drive systems which operate, through suitable cams and clutches, to intermittently effect indexed movement of the conveyor flights. By such arrangements, a continuously operated drive motor acts through the cam drives to intermittently advance the associated conveyor, with the cam profile characteristics of the arrangement defining the dwell period, and rates of container acceleration and deceleration, for each cycle of operation during which the conveyor is indexed.
While conveying arrangements of the above type are in widespread use and have proven to be highly reliable and efficient, such arrangements do not lend themselves to versatility in application. In particular, different food products can exhibit a wide variety of different viscosities, and thus the requirements for handling one type of food product can be significantly different than those for another product. For example, relatively low viscosity products cannot be accelerated and decelerated too quickly during conveyor indexing if spillage is to be avoided, while relatively viscous products can be subjected to higher acceleration and deceleration rates. As will be appreciated, adapting the conveyor of a filling machine to handle these differing products typically requires reconfiguring the drive of the apparatus to include cam drives having cam profiles suited for the particular product being conveyed.
Such reconfiguration of the conveyor drives in conventional equipment is typically required if the conveyor pitch, i.e., the distance which the conveyor is indexed during each cycle, is to be altered. Various sizes and types of containers typically require that conveyors be capable of various pitches of indexing movement, with conventional mechanical cam drives ordinarily requiring reconfiguration for providing different pitches of indexing movement.
A further drawback of conventional conveying arrangements relates to use of a single conveyor for conveying more than one type of container. For some applications, it can be desirable for a conveyor to have non-consecutive conveyor flights arranged to carry containers of a first configuration, while other ones of the flight carry containers of a second, differing configuration. In operation, it can be desirable to index the conveyor between the non-consecutive flights carrying containers of the one configuration, without stopping the other flights at the various filling stations. Again, reconfiguration of the mechanical drive is typically required for such an application.
The present invention contemplates a conveying system for use with a filling apparatus which is particularly configured for highly versatile use without resort to time-consuming reconfiguration of a mechanical drive of the system.